- Oyster farming does not stop after summer ends.
I need to be grabbing these at the top, yeah?
- [Kevin] You're doing great.
- It's cold, it's snowy, it's icy.
I have about four layers on and I still can't feel my feet,
and we are out here seeing what it takes
to farm oysters through the winter.
Worth it?
Tell me about Nonesuch.
- Nonesuch is a small, Maine oyster farm,
and we're doing between half a million
and a million oysters a year.
On our farm we basically have three oysters.
We have the Nonesuch oysters,
which are started in gear during their first year
and then the second year we put them on the bottom.
And then we have the Abigail Pearl oysters,
which we start in gear on the top
and we continue to grow them
in gear on the top through their lifetime.
And what's so interesting and exciting to me about our farm
is that the Nonesuch and the Abigail Pearls
are the same species,
and just by virtue of that second year difference
in how we grow them we're producing
two totally different oysters.
And then we have these Belon oysters, which are wild.
So we're gonna take you out on the boat
and we're gonna show you the farm
and harvest oysters a few different ways.
We drag for oysters and then we also have oysters in gear,
and we will sort through those.
- So what are some of the challenges
of winter oyster farming?
- Some days this area gets so impacted with ice,
that literally the boat becomes an icebreaker,
and we just slowly ram our way up the river.
- I can't wait to get out there and see all three.
- I can't wait to put you to work.
(laughs)
- I'm ready!
- Okay hold on, we're gonna get her
to go down the ladder of death.
It's high tide so it's not scary.
- What the hell is the ladder of death?
- [Abigail] Well,
(laughing)
- Alright, let's hope I don't trip over my pants.
- Well done! Woo hoo!
- I'm not there yet.
Alright I made it.
- High five, well done.
(laughs)
You could do some glam poses on the bow if you want.
- We'll all just look fabulous like this.
(cinematic music)
Alright so when we drag,
we're using this dragger right here,
- [Katie] Okay.
- [Kevin] And we're gonna be moving,
and you're just gonna let it sink down.
- Oh my gosh this is making me nervous.
I feel like my feet are gonna get tangled up in this line
or something.
- One time falling in and you'll figure it out.
- Alright so,
- We're gonna get going, and you're gonna,
- Okay so let me know when to drop.
- Do it, we're ready.
- Oh we're ready.
- Yep.
Go for it pretty slow.
There you just like that.
Yeah, you got it.
Now just toss that over.
Perfect.
And now wait for the jolt.
There it is.
And we're dragging.
Great, now you can turn it off.
Perfect.
So yeah, now the best thing to do is take this,
you put the teeth right on the side of the boat.
Now let's just slide it down the rail.
So yeah, that's, the less lifting the better.
- Yeah, I'm feelin' that.
(laughs)
- Alright so lift,
(chains clattering)
and shake 'em out.
- What's the most interesting thing you've picked up?
- [Abigail] Sunglasses that I've lost.
- [Katie] Oh nice!
- I'm still waiting to get some of my iPhones back but,
(laughs)
So these are uh, floating gear.
All the lines in this area are named
in alphabetical order after superheroes.
So we have Antman, Batman, Catwoman.
We need to pick up all the bags of oysters out of here
and keep track of how many we have.
- [Katie] Okay.
- [Abigail] So these are the nonesuch oysters
that we're harvesting the ones that we've dragged up
from that reservoir.
Those in the purple bags are Abigail Pearls,
and they're grown start to finish
in these floating bags right here.
- [Kevin] Yeah!
- [Abigail] Well done!
- [Kevin] Just like that.
- So how long does it take, start to finish,
to get them to this point ready to sell?
- We start seed in the summer,
and it will be the next fall before we have any
of any seed ready.
- So it's at least a year.
How many oysters are you bringing up on a daily basis?
- Right now we're doing about ten thousand a week.
We've got a lot of oysters out there.
We've got like two million oysters on the site.
Every bag has a hundred and one
or a hundred and two oysters in it.
Um, we always throw in one or two extras for good measure.
- Right, that's nice.
- Um, and then,
- The old baker's dozen.
What's the farthest you've shipped to?
- [Abigail] Manhattan.
- [Katie] This is gorgeous!
- Yeah, we're gonna do keepers here, rejects there.
- Okay.
- And the, petite here.
These are good, beautiful looking Nonesuch,
So we're gonna put those here.
- Okay, right.
- And we're really looking for sort of a three inch oyster.
Um, I think it's dead.
- But you're just, oh it's hollow.
- And I could see the eyes, it just has a,
- What?
- I have the eye for it.
- Alright so this is serious sorting,
high standards going on.
- Yeah. These oysters are dead
but they still serve a purpose.
They'll break down in the, in the river bottom
and they will help mitigate ocean acidification.
It's great to put them back in the water
'cause they're just filled with calcium.
(oysters clattering)
- Alright, so these are the Pearls we harvested,
and we'll see that these look pretty different
than the Nonsuch that we've collected over here.
- [Katie] What is the perfect one we're looking for here?
- [Abigail] So this is actually
a pretty typical looking pearl.
It's just got a nice consistent oblong shape here,
and a nice decent cup.
- Should we try some?
- Yeah, I think we should.
These will be the lightest, the sort of, the daintiest.
Um, and those will be the heartiest, and they,
the Belons are definitely not for the faint of heart.
They are incredibly meaty, they're very salty,
and they have a metallic taste to them,
some people equate to licking an aluminum pail.
(laughs)
- What? Okay.
- They're also considered a delicacy.
You can already see the meats are different,
in the sense that, see the little brown edges on this one?
- [Katie] And that's not the same?
- [Abigail] And this is sleeker and this is meatier.
Same species, I would guess they're about the same vintage,
Bottom, surface.
- Alright, it's time.
So this is the pearl.
Oh my gosh.
Salty!
- Yeah.
It's, yep. - From the surface.
- And this is the Emerald?
- Yeah, the Nonesuch Emerald, yeah.
- The Nonesuch Emerald.
- So those came off the bottom
and they should be a little earthier and sweeter.
- A hundred percent exactly that.
Sweeter.
So this is the Belon, the meatiest, right?
Saved it for last.
- I can't wait to see your reaction.
- Oh my gosh, it comes at the end,
- Yep, slow finish.
- a little bit of the metallic.
We're having warmer winters, shorter winters,
how is that impacting this business?
- Well in the short term it's making it a little easier,
to be perfectly honest.
We're getting winter growth, you can see these like,
thin lips are still coming out here
and it's the middle of the winter,
that shouldn't be happening.
Yeah that's pretty new growth.
But with that is coming a lot of problems.
In certain areas in the south,
they can't harvest in the warm months
because of a prevalence of diseases
that are either harmful to the oysters
or harmful to people eating the oysters,
and Maine for now,
still remains relatively clean of most of those problems,
but we're all sort of looking south
and seeing what's going to happen.
What I'm very happy to see with these two oysters,
is that they're really clean inside.
There's not a lot of other coloring.
That is the sign of like a happy oyster,
that's had a non-stressful life.
I'm so excited about doing
both these same species two different ways,
because I just think it's such a incredible expression
of nature, and it shows
how sensitive oysters are to their environment.
- That it's a living thing.
- But it also has this huge environmental message,
which is wow, look how differently they're reacting.
Previously it was unfathomable to me
that they could be that sensitive to their environment.
And it just makes me think about all the little ways
that we're impacting the ocean
without really thinking about it.
All of these things are having a huge impact
on our marine ecosystem.
- I can't feel my hands right now.
But I can taste this oyster.
Thanks so much for having me.
It's been amazing. - You've been a great sport.
Come back when it's warm!
- Thanks for watching!
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